My gosh, everyone, I have a grievous announcement to make: Australia is a horrifically holiday-stricken nation.
It comes as a shock, I know, but I can attest firsthand. You cannot know how many Australians have opened their overworked hearts to me and lamented how direly in need of a holiday they were. The examples are countless, but they generally suffer from waiting approximately a year without a "proper" holiday. (Weekend excursions as far as Bali do not count.)
Today, however, everyone having just returned to work after ten days off, I was amazed to hear the discussion begin so soon. My co-worker, it transpires, has led a very egregious existence wherein no holiday light has shined.
"I haven't had a holiday in a year," he sighed, as I hastily scanned the room for smelling salts.
"Um, what about Christmas?" I asked.
Christmas did not count. Neither, it transpired, did the week off (or was it two?) he'd had four months ago. It was a hectic vacation, you see. It had been well and truly a year since the poor soul had frolicked merrily on the shores of free time.
He's not alone, of course. Somebody did a study that the Australians are the hardest working people on earth and the Australians, bless their hearts, believed them. They live their 4-week-mandatory-vacation-a-year lives constantly in the agony of knowing someone -- the French, for example! -- are lazing their European lives away with twice the number of public holidays, and probably 6 weeks a year.
It's enough to make anyone need to sit down and sunbathe fast.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
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